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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 I T JIli: B U TJ Si I N (. OF I'iKRKi; M \KGKYS LA SALLE BLlRBLf By JOHX GILMARY SHEA. R,pruit,ii fi-i'in the .\ik< )'irk l-rr.iiinii's Jcrnal N E \\ V () l{ 1< : T. J5. SIDEiJOTHAM, rUINTEl!, 28 HEEKMAN STUEET. 1S79. /; ii -■:%^ Vw>J.h><^f^'i' r',^^*r,.>r-2-y ;-^ -i :'p'^'^$:|i;::': if'V :"*:. tr".*;w:-;-.;A » >i; V -^"^ -.1 f4^ T H 1 : B U 1 i s T I IS- G . -ix"- >/'■ OF I'IKKKE MARGKYS LA SALLE BUBBLE, P.V JOHN GILMARY SHEA. NEW YOHK: •1. ]i. SIDEIiOTHA^M. PltlNTEK. 28 15EEKMAN S'l'liEET. 1879. 1 THE BURSTING OP PIERRE MARGRYS LA SALLE BUBBLE. For nearly twenty years Mr. Pierre Margry haH been holdiag over the heads of American scholars, with agreat show of mystery, documentary evidence whieli was to prove to a certainty that his fellow, Norman Robert Cavelier, commonly known sis La Sal le, was the first to discjover the Mississippi, and that he had been deprived of his just glory in favor of Joliet, son of a blacksmith, American bom at that, and Marque "ite, a Jesuit. His first claim was tha La Salle descended the Ohio and Mississippi to its mouth in 1670. This proving untenable he claims that subsequent to that date he descended the Illinois and Mississippi. Articles by him have appeared in French jour- nals, a fellow Norman, Gravier, adopted his views, but in this country there was a lack of faith, Ban- croft had Margry's published articles and some of the documents in which he relied, but did not ac- cept his positions. ,VIr. Faillon, writing from docu- ments strongly prepossessed against the Jesuits, could not embrace his views. Mr. Parkman, ti whom he furnished many documents, and who shows constantly Margry's iutiuence, and who had apparently all that Margry relied upon, dared not compromise his reputation by adopting his theories. Harrisse, a bibliographer, dispassionately study- ing the question, found Margry's arguments most unsubstantial. Yet, with the fact that uot a single American stn- dent of history has rmged himself beside him, Mr. Margry, in a recent letter to Mr. Lyman 0. Draper, Hays: "These articles of mine have greatly trou- liled certain persons, as appears by the meeting at Missilimakinak, regarding the discovery, more or less reliable, of the tlie remains of Father Mar- quetta. What I said concerning Oavelier de la Salle's priority in discovering the Ohio and Missis- sippi, has been the occasion of great and even acri- monious controvcrni. 8. I care nothij.g for attacks from which search after truth is excluded, and which are little else than passion." This is very MlJy. American historical students have simply given the verdict, "Not proven," a» to Mr. Mar- gry's theory. Bdt he has at last shown his hand and enabled UK to see all that he has to bring forward on the subject. His exceptional advantages in being able to investigate year after year the French archives, making copies of many documents for the Cana- dian Government, Mr. Parkman and other scholars enabled him to collect a mass of material, that was supposed to be of great value. By some lobby iu- fiueuce at Washington, an appropriation, I believe of ten thousand dollars, was ma^le to enable him to print them. Three volumes have appeared, and it must be avowed that they are sadly disappointing. They are padded out and extended unjustifiably, and the new matter proves to be comparatively little. The documents are divided into classes, and arranged under chapters, with an abundance of bastard titles and extended headings like those of a sensational newspaper. The source of the document is not given, except in a confused way at the end, nor information furnished whether from the copy is mude au origiual or a copy, whetlier late or early. The first documeut oi all, the "Mem- oiro of the RecollectB," is uo uovelty here. It was printed iu t'le Quebec Abellfe, May 30, 1859, et ser/., with uotes by the late accurate Abbe Ferlaud. The summary of discoverieH, pp. 35 to 41, will be found trauHlated iu the "New York Colonial Docu- nunts," iii., p. 507; pp. 43-55 are ixtractH from the "JeBuit Relatione," which have been reprint- ed entire in Canada. The notice on Allouez, pp. 57 72, I used more than twenty live yearw ago, auil he introducfH it, as he rather amusingly tells uh, only to give him a pretext for iuseriiug au anti- Jesuit polemical tract. The documents, pages 76, 77, 82-9, 91-4, 99-100, 167, 238, 245, 249, 250, 255, 257, 273, 281, 286, will be found in "New York Colonial Documents," ix., pp. 29, 41, 64,67,05. 66, 69, 72, 73, 75, 95, 93, 115, 120, 92, 121, 117, 123, 125, and it would be easy to extend the reference. The letters pp. 238, 9, 242 are in the "Miftiou du Canada," i., p. 343, etc. If the "Relation ot Jo- liet's Discovery " is virtually a copy of that iu his hand-writing preserved in the Seminary of St. Sul- pice, Paris (FailloD, Histoire 3, p. 315 ; Harrisse, p. 322-3), the suppression of Joliet's own letter on the same sheet needs explanation. It does nf)t look honest ; and the note of the editor on page 301, makes us think he has recently read " Tar- tuffe." The act of taking posses jion, page 96, liaK always been published in "Tailhau's Perrot,'" page 292. And in many cases he gives merely an extract where the "New York Documents" give t'ie entire papar, enabling the etudtnt to see the connection and understand the tone of the wliole. The editing is very carelessly done. A letter given on page 239, as of Father Gravier, is evi- « (Icutly of Father Jnliau Gamier, who wan then in tliH Seueoa country, wliile GraviiT never was. On page 255 the extract from Frotitt'uac'B letter regard- iug Jjliet, has the date Hni)prfBaeiI in the text and given only in the Hummary, which in view of the fact, that the animus of the whole c illection is to asHail Joliet, does not look accidental. There are, undoubtedly, papers here made ac- (vssibh) to liiBtorical students for the first time, l)Ut their number and value are not what one would expect from a collector possehniug for years the re- luarkajle advantages of Mr, Margry. The most nnportant are really those which give the true story of Li Salle's last attempt, exp jse his pirati- cal object and relieve Beanjeu from the odium so i )ug, so disiugeauously and so persistently heaped upon him. In his letter to Mr, Draper, as translated by Mr. James D. Butler, Mr. Margry says: "I still very firmly believe that La Salle discovered the Missis- sippi by way of the Lakes, by Chicago and by the Illiuois River, as far south as the 36th parallel and all this before 1G73 (the date of Marquette's discovery). This opinion of mine I base first on the narrative made by La Salle to the Abbd Renau- dot." This narrative describes an e* '"^dition in which La Salle was engaged southwest of Lake Oatorio, for a distance of four hundred leagues, !ind d>jwu a river that must have been the Ohio. This was in 1669, The narrative proceeds : "Some time thereafter he made a second expedition on the same ri, and dv- Bcending from north to soutli. leaving on the West the Bay of the PutinH (Green Baj;, diwcover- ed a baj infliitely larger— at the bottom of whicij, towardH the west, he found a very l>eautiful harnor (Chicago. Is there any earlier mention or <]■ Hcription of that site?) and at the bottom of thin river which runs from the east to the went, In- followed this river and having arrived at abon* *'ae 280th (nic.) degree of longitut:" and the 31 u of latitud he came to another river, which uniting with ine first, flowed from th' northwest to tt' southeast. This ho followed m fai a* the .SGtli de- gree of latitude, where he fnuud it acivisable to stop, contenting himself with the almost .>itain hope of some day passing by way of the rivf v\eu to the Gulf of Mexico. Haviug but a handful of followers, he dared not riwii a further expt-ditiou iu the course of which he was likely to meet with ob- stacles too great for his strength. fSee the work above mentioned. Vol. i., p. 878.; "I base my opinion, secondly, the Mississippi. Joliet gave them a written description of the route from the Ottawas, and apparently of a shorter one, whicli ail Iroqu "is had explained to him, and Gali- n(5e embodied this information iu a map. Joliet also told the Missionaries where he had left a canoe od Lake Erie, With this important aid from Joliet, Dollier de Caeson and liis party start- ed for tlie West on the 30th, to take the rout« indi- cated by that explorer ; La Salle, on the prete .t of ill-health remained, showing an iucliuatitm to re- turn til Montreal. ("Relatiou ilel' Abbe de la GaUn^e." Margry 1, pp. 112 147.) This gives an authtntic aud circnmstantial ac- y^ 12 coHnt of La Salle's first attempt to reach tie Ohio; auil by the testimony of Galin^e, we, fiml Joliet and La Salle face to face iu this Indian vil- lage, Joliet already cognizant of the West, and ex- plaiuing to La Salle and his companions his idea of the best m(Kle of reaching the Mississippi, and of- fering them a description which he had drawn up of his route. In the qufjstioa of the priority be tween La Salle and Joliet, all this is highly im- j 'ortant. Now, let us see how this matter is treated iu Margry's first authority. The Second Part of the Anonymous Memoir, headed "Histoire de M. de la Salle," begins thus : " He left France at 21 or 22 years of age, suffi- ciently conversant with the last Relations of the New World, nnd with the design of attempting some new discoveries there. Mtet having been some time in Canada, having acquired sotu.^ knowledge ot the languages, and traveled northward where he t<'und nothing that induced him to remain, he re- solved to turn southward, and having advane«^d for tliis purpose tt an Indian town, where there was a Jesuit whose name has escaped me (I do not know whether it was not Father Albantl) and where he htipeJ to find guides, this Jesuit had notice of his coming and his design, went off to a distance, arid although the Indians of that town, as almost all those of that continent, have of themselves no re- pugnance io serve as guides, he could never find a single one who would render him that service. He accordingly had to re uain there some time, during which having persuaded those who accompanied him to try some fortune, hoping to find some Indi- ans who would guide him, he went further, found what he sought and Mr. Galinee, who was with 13 him and who had gone to Canada only to catecliise the Indians, thinking that he could render more service in the placee where there were Jesuits, al- though he was moreover connected with the Sulpi- tiaiis, resolved to go to theOttiiwas, which id a nor- thern nation, above the Fresh Water Sea, who carry on a great trade in beaver. This ecclesiastic had asked a Mission from the Bishop of Canada and that Bishop had sent him to the Jesuits to receive a Mission from them. Mr. Galin^e, surprised at this dismissal, told him that he could not take his mission from the Jesuits, if merely because be was a licentiate of the Sorbouue, where he would never be pardoned for so extraonliuary a step, but he could obtain nothing from the Bishop. He never- theless set out, unable to persuade himself that these Fathers would at least prevent his baptizing, as he was a deacon. Accordingly with this hope he left Mr. de la Salle, who thought very differently from him, and who assured him that he would not be there long ; and in fact the Jesuits thanked him and promptly bowed him out. Meanwliile Mr. de la Salle continued his way on a river which goes from east to west and passes to Onontagut? (Onon- daga), then to six or seven leagues below Lake Erie, and having reached the 280th or 83d degree of longitude and as far as the -ilst degree of lati- tude, found a cataract which falls westward in a lov marshy country, all covered with old stum ^js some of which are still standing. He was forced to land, and following a ridge which might lead him far, he found some Indians who told bim that very far from there, this same river which lost itself in thif. low and vast country, united again in a single bed. He accordingly continued his way, but as the hardship was great, 23 or 24 men whom he had •J- \i 14 eonclucted up to that point, uU left him iu one iiigLt, regained the river and escaped, some to New Netherland, the others to New Englind. He then beheld himself alone four hundred leagues from his borne, to which nevertheless he succeeded iu return- ing ascending the river, and living by hunting, on herbs and what the Indians gave him whom he met on the way. Some time after that he made a second attempt on the same river, wbich he left below Lake Erie, making a portage of six or seven leagues to embark on that lake, which he crossed to the north, ascend- ed the river which forms this lake, passed Salt Wa- ter Lake, entered the Fresh Water Sea, doubled the point of laud which divides this lake iu two, and descending it from north to south, leaving on the west the bay of the Puants, discovered a bay infin- itely larger, at the head of which on the west he found a very fine harbor, and at the head of this harbor a river that runs from east to west. He fol- lowed this river and having reaohed about the 280th degree of longitude and 39th degree of latitude, found another river which, joining the former, flowed from northwest to southeast. He followed this river to the 36th degree of latitude where he found it advisable to stop, contenting himself with the almost certain hope of being »ne day able to pass, by following the course of this river, to the Gulf of Mexico, and not daring with the small party he had, to hazard an enterprise in the course of which he might find some obstacle insuperable to the means which he had." This vague series of statements without a single date, or the name of a tribe, or a description of a landmark is quott'd to us as historical authority ! The first part is covered by Qalin^e's careful nar 15 rative where every date is giveu, and the course marked so that it can be traced, and that narrative shows the falsity of this paper. La Salle aud Dol lier de Cassor , each impelled by the information given by some Seneca ambasi^adorn rescjlvetl to reach the Mississippi, the former tj explore it to its mouth on the Pacific, believing the Ohio the main river ruaaing constantly westward; (see Dollier de Oasson, Voyage de M. de Courcelles, Margry 1, p. 181 ; N. Y. Col. Doc, ix. p. 80). Dollier deCasson, a Sulpitian priest to found Missions on its banks. The Histoire de M. de la Salle suppresses Dollier de Casson, and invents a story about Galinee's being refused a Mission by the Bishop, and being sent to the Jesuits. The story is palpably false, as his own narrative shows. He went merely as assis- tant to Dollier de Oasson, who received from Bishop Laval, faculties such as he had given the year before to F6nelon. Mr. Faillou describes them and refers to the Greffe de Villemarie, Archives Judiciares, where they are, dated May 15th, 1669. Those of F^nelon to which he refers, are printed in Dollier de Oasson 's History of Montreal, issued by the Historical Society of that city, aud were recently translated by me for "The First Pages of Cayuga History.'" Each party fitted out its own canoes, and neither seems to have provided an interpreter knowing any Iroquois dialect, so that on reaching the Seneca country they were helpless. Then they crossed the mouth of the Niagara, and proceeded to an Iroquois village on the Northern shore of Lake Ontario. If in doing this La Salle can be said "to have gone further and found what he sought," the Histoire is true, if not it is false ; its statement of Galin6e's Mission is false ; the state-' ment that he left La Salle when they parted at Te- 16 uaoutaoua, because the Bishop would not give him faculties is false ; that he went to the Jesuits who declined his services i^ false, by Galinde's own showing. The attempt ti reach the Mississippi by the way of the Seneca country having failed, Dollier de Oasson and Oalin^e, acted on the advice of Joliet, who gave them information euflSoient to draw a map, and they went to Sault Ste. Marie and the isles oS Green Bay, evidently to folio v the course by the Wisconsin which Joliet himself subsequently took. Galinde's narrative shows that Joliet was conversant with the subject, had studied the country, made uo secret of the route he deemed best, and encour- aged others to try it. And at this time we have no evidence of any knowledge of the Mississippi on the part of La Salle except of the most vague char- acter. The Histoire proceeds : '• Meanwhile Mr. de la Salle continued his way on a river which goes from east to west, and passes to Onondaga, then to six or seven leagues below Lake Erie." The Sulpi> tians left him on the northern shore of Lake On- tario ; this account transports him suddenly to a river rising east of Onondaga, passing by that and and then running westward within twenty miles of Lake Erie. In the Memoire attributed to La Salle himself, there is no such absurdity. He there (Margry 1, p. 330,) merely claims that he discovered the Ohio, and continues : •• He followed it to a place where it falls from very high into vast marshes, iit37 degrees North, after having been swollen by an- other wide river that comes from the north." While the Histoire confusing everything says: "Having arrived at 280 degrees or 83 degrees of longitude, and to 41 degrees of longitude he found a cataract L 17 whi.-h falls towards the west iu a low marshy couutry all covered with old stumps," etc. That La Salle really reached the Ohio is gener- allj admitted ; but ueither of these ac.'ounts en- ables us to fix the point to whicli he followed it There is certainly no high fall. Tiie rapids at Louisville cannot be so called, and the wide river trom the north is wanting as well m the marshes through which an Indian canoe could not pass To assume that he reached the Mississippi, and make It the aide river from the north flowing into the Ohio, makes the allusion to the high falls absurd as there are certainly none on th'. Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio. The Histoire so far from removing doubtd, thicken them. Its sequel, that he kept o,j his way by a ridge till his 23 or 24 men deserted him, and made their way to New Netherland (New York), or New Eng- land, which must mean Virginia, does not look probable. Galin^e says that La balle proposed taking five canoes and fourteen men, and Dollier de Oassou, tliree canoes and seven men, but that they really started with seven canoes, each with three men. After they parted company La SaLe could not have had twenty-three or twenty-four men as- his share of the twenty-one. While we admit La Salle 8 discovery of a river, itcannot be on this con- tused and distorted Memoir, We have m favor of It La Salle's, not very intelligible account, for ueither the Ohio nor the Mississippi meets the case, a subsequent reference to the Ohio as a river he discovered, the recognition of La Salle's claim on Joliet s maps, and the passage in Talon's letter t.j the King, November 2, 1671, which ve may justly refer to this exploration. The Histoire adds noth- ing to these. ■ttd 11- 18 The uexfc Htatemeut in the Histoire is the one on •which Mr. Margry relies to prove that La Salle discoTtrecl the Mississippi before Marquette aud Jol let's voyage iu 1673. Its statement is that some time after his discovery of the Ohio, that is au in- definite time after an unsettled date, La Salle made a second attempt on the same river, and leaving it, reached Lake Erie by a portage of six or seven leagues, taking the route which Qalin^e says the Senecas recommended, that of the Muskingam, aud Cuyahoga, or Scioto and Sandusky, or that referred to later by La Salle, the Maumee and Wabash. That he then crossed Lake Eiie, ascended the St. Clair, entered Lake Michigan, aud at the head of the lake found a fine harbor, which seems to cor- respond to Chicago, and to give the narrative the widest interpretation, from this place reached a river ruuning west, the Illinois, which he followed to the Mississippi, and descended that river to latitude 39 degrees North, longitude 280 degrees West, where an- other river, the Missouri, came from the northwest, and passing its mouth he kept on to 36 degrees North. As this pretended discovery is mentioned on no document of the time, it rests solely on this Recit and Histoire ; and the credibility of this paper must be tested. Its very form is against it ; it is without name or date, but evidently more recent than 1678, when Joliet's voyage was known. As to La Salle's voyage it gives no dates or details as to the number of his men, the name of a single one 'vho accompanied him, persons met at any point of the route, the ■ ime occupied on the voyage. There is nothing that could not have been derived from Joliet's account of the Mississippi. In itself the Becit and Histoire is utterly worthless as histori- 19 cal evidence. It abouuds in statements easily re- futed, and so preposterous that Mr. Parkmau am] Margry have hitherto conbigned them to obHviou, Mr. Parkman showing hi 3 contempt of them, by never alluding to them in his «' Jesuits of North America" or "Discovery of the Great West. " Thus it charges that the Jesuits at Mackinac and Sault 8te. Marie bad soldiers whom they drilled in the use of weapoDS ; and though we have Galin^e's, La Salle's, Hennepin's, and even La Hon tan's accounts of visits to Mackinac, not one, though all unfriend- ly to the Jesuits, even hints at such a state of things, nor does Frontenac ever charge this in the de- spatches where he gathers all he can against them. More vile than this is the charge that Brebeut, Daniel and the other Jesuits killed on the Huron Mis&ion died fighting ; and that Father Garnier shot down three men before he fell. It wouUl Ije necessary simply to read this precious document of Margry 's, and Gamier 's letters to decide which was the hoaest man. The charge that Brother le Boeme killed two Sioux at Sault Ste. Marie, that Bishop Laval kept an open shop in his house, are a sample of the style of the whole paper. It professes to be made from conversations with La Salle, notes being taken after each interview, yet it is tilled with professed inability to recollect names, and shows that the writer had access to dis- patches of Frontenac from which some of the nat- ter is drawn, as, for instance, Hennepin's visit to Father Bruyas, whose name in his usual style this author professes to forget. As a sample of hi« honesty take this : ' « The Jesuits had sent to France, more than a year ago, one of their Donn^ Brothers, named Joliet, with another map made from hearsay, and this Donne Brother took to himself the honor n 20 of this tliHcovery. This imposture did not succeed to the honor of this Douut' Brother, who aocMrding to all appearances did uot meet the questions usually made on such occasions, and Mr. Qalinde gave one of my friends to understand that he kuevr no one but Mr. de la Salle capable of having made that discovery." Are we to take this as history ? To make Joliet a Donu»5, one of those humble workiuguieu who from zeal gave their servici^s at the Mi-tn'ouw ; to say that Joliet who, asGalimietellsuB, gave La Salle and Dollier de Casson a description of the route to the West, and told them the most practicable route to the Mississippi, made his map of the river from hearsay ; tu uall his claim an imposture when Fron- tenac auuouuces his mission by authority, and when the Government subsequently rewarded him for it, is Worse than a crime ; it is a blunder. Marquette and Joliet with only Ave men faced dangers from which Dollier de Casson and Galinee with V^etter equip- ment recoiled ; they carried out the exploration with fewer men than La Salle had in his ineffectual at- tempt to reach the Ohio ; far fewer than the force with which he finally reached the exaggerated rapids ut Louisville, the only falls his advocates cau find. This paper Mr. Margry did wisely to keep back for thirty years, and the United States Government would have done wisely to keep it thirty years be- fore printing it as history. We may almost expect to see Bar(ju Munchausen issue from the Govern- ment printing office. To seek tc^ establish any historical fact ou the mere authority of this miserable anonymous libel i» ridiculous. But it may be said that Mr. Margry has a document to support it. Let us examine it. This other document, reliei upon by Mr. Margry, 21 is a letter of Magdalen Cavelier, Dame Leforestier a uieoe of La Salle's, written mare than eighty years after the period of the discovery of the Mis- sissippi. It shows her to be very ignorant. Al- most every word is misspelt. It rnns thus : "This21January 175<), "As soon, sir, your letter received, I sought a safe way to send you the papers of Mr. de la SiUe. There are maps which I have joined to these pa- pers, whial ought to serve to prove that m 1675 Mr. de la Saik liad already made two voyages in these discoveries, since there is a map which I send you, by which mention is made of the place where Mr.' de la Salle landed near the river Misipi, anoth-r place that he calls River Cobrer, in another he takes possession of this country in the name of the king and plants a cross, another place that he calls Froa- tenac, the river Saint Lorans at another place. You will see in these pieces the review made in the fort, whirh he built of stone, which was of wood. You will find the receipt of.Mr. Duchesneau for in- tendant of 9000 liv. which Mr. de la Salle had paid him to indemnify those who had ma It- this foit of wood." Now what is there in this? Simply that he had made two voyages of exploration by 1675, fixing, as it were, 1675 as the date of his visit to the Missis- sippi, and yet the whole tenor makes it clear that the map was made subsequent to his voyage to the mouth, and his planting a cross there, taking pos- session in the k-ng's name. Certainly there is nothing here to prove that he visited the Mississip- pi before Joliet. The use of the name Coll)ert, which was given by Joliet, is evidence that the map was later than his discoveries. But the letter is too vague to amount to anything. The lady was a par- wf'iifiimm 22 ty to a suit mauy years before, aud the papers in her hands must have all beeu canvassed then. No trace of such a claim appears at that time. It may be said that the remark of Talon, in 1671, refers really to La Salle's expedition, in which he discovered the Mississippi, and that the Ohio dis- covery took place before aud immediately after parting with Dollier de Cassou, This theory can- not stand for a moment. Talon, writing by the ves- sels that sailed in November, 1671, announces that La Salle had not yet returned from his explorations. We are then to believe that La Salle returned from the West aud announced to Talon in December, 1671, or early iu 1672, that he had reached tlie great river of the West, and descended it to 36 degrees Njrth ; and that Talon either disbelieved the whole story and treated it as a fiction, or else forgot it as soon as he heard it. Certainly, by the time the sum- mer of 1672 came. Talon was not iudueuced by La Salle's report, if there was any report, or he would not have despatched Joliet to the West to try and discover the very river that La Salle had just ex- plored. As Talon has a reputation of being some- thing bttter thau an idiot, we must hold that when he sent Joliet to discover and explore the Missis- sippi, he had no intelligence of its discovery and exploration by any one else. Had he known of La Salle's discovery aud treat- ed it as an imposture. La Salle, on going to France, in 1674, would undoubtedly have protested against the wrong done liim, and iu working against Joliet's Illinois pioject, iu 1677, would have used his claim of prior discovery. Even at a later date, when he made the voyage down, which is so fully chroni- cled, he merely criticized Joliet's account, admit- ting his voyage, without pretendmg to have anti- cipated him. 23 Indeed, he admits Joliet's priority ; "It is true that the Sieur Joliet, to anticipate him, made a voyage, in 1673, to the River Colbert," says La Salle, himself. (Margry, 2, p. 285.) Moreover, we have La Salle's o wu evidence, in regard to this Chicago route, lu his letter of Sep- tember 29, 1680 (Margry, 2, p. 79), he claims the discovery of the Ohio, and extols its superiority over the Wisconsin, "the route by which Joliet passed." On p. 95, he decries the Chicago route, as if it had been extf)lled by others ; and on p. 167, explicitly says that it was recommended by Joliet, and on p. 137, he states that the name Divine was given to the river by Johet. Now, is it possible that he could have taken this route to the Mississippi prior to the voyage of Mar- quette and Joliet, and consequently before Joliet over saw this Chicago river, and yet never allude to the fact, but on two occasions associate Joliet with it as discoverer, namer and recommender. Would he not have asserted his own claim, and not fallen back, as he habitually does, on his discovery of the Ohio? It seems strange that La Salle, without having explored the Missifisippi, could have gone to France and obtained a grant when Joliet, the reil discover- er, met a ref .jsal. But it is not stranger than to see our Government, without any examination, give money to Mr. Margry to print papers alreatiy ac- cessible, or not worth printing, when papers of the highest interest to our country lie unpriuted here. However, it is almost impossible to fix a time when La Salle could have gone to the Mis uasippi before his voyage to France, iu the autumn tle«t of 1674. That he had not made the discovery up to No- vember 2, 1671, seems certain from Talon's dis- Ti timmmmmmnm 24 patch. That, after hia return from Ohio, he start- ed westward, and forestalled Marquette and Joliet, or went while they were actually on the river, it is impossible to believe. There would have been some notice somewhere of the rival attempts. In the summer of 1673, he was Fronteaao's messenger to the Iroquois cantons; at Easter, in 1674, he was creating a disturbance in the church at Jd^ontreal ; in November he went to France. La Salle's prior discovery of the Mississippi is a bubble, which Mr. Margry, by giving in articles merely fragments of documents, has ingeniously blown to an immense size. It staggered many who thought that there must be something in it. Clear heads like Harriase, Tailhau, Faillou, ex- amined his arguments carefully, so far as they had the documents, and decided that he failed to prove his case. Mr. Parkman, more guardedly, reaches the same result. Xow that we have all that he relies en, the bubble bursts and vanishes into thin air ; it is merely a monstrous hoax that he has been playing.